Federal regulations imposing restrictions on the amounts and classes of materials that can be used in solvent-systems (due to emissions into the atmosphere) have resulted in the need for cleaning compositions having low volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are well-known to contribute to overall air quality and therefore may be regulated by states and/or the federal government. Solvents employed in commercial cleaning compositions and having excellent cleaning properties are often high VOC content materials. These include, for example, glycol ethers, ether acetates, ketones, lower alkyl aromatic hydrocarbons and others.
Cleaning compositions employing solvents having lower VOCs have been a focus in commercial markets. For example, fatty acid methyl esters have been used as renewable, low VOC solvents. Exemplary esters include soy methyl esters and lauryl methyl esters. However, many low VOC solvent systems provide insufficient or inferior cleaning performance, such as the poor degreasing performance provided by soy methyl esters. Additional disadvantages to fatty acid methyl esters include unpleasant and potent odors, such as those exhibited by lauryl methyl esters, as well as the risk of hydrolyzation of the esters to form methanol, having known toxicity concerns.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the claimed invention to develop safe, renewable, low VOC cleaning compositions incorporating non-volatile solvents.
A further objective of the claimed invention to develop stable, low-odor and high performance solvents that are non-volatile for incorporation into cleaning compositions.
A further object of the invention is a safe, sustainable cleaning composition wherein at least a portion of conventional solvents, such as glycol ethers, methyl esters, hydrocarbon solvents and d-Limonene are replaced with non-volatile solvents.